Cast Iron

A background color by design, with a yellow cast that keeps it from being featureless. SW 6202 in the Sherwin-Williams range.

At 6.0 on the chroma scale, this is closer to grey than to color, though the yellow cast keeps it from being either. The yellow cast is more noticeable under cool, daylight-balanced bulbs than under standard warm ones, which tend to mute it.

Light reflectance measures 12.5, which is enough to keep a room bright without bouncing light around. It is the sort of color that goes on every wall of a house without feeling overwhelming.

Behr Gray Timber Wolf pairs well as a second surface - close enough in feel to belong in the same room, far enough in lightness to read as two distinct walls (about 29.5 points apart on the reflectance scale).

For anyone tied to a different brand, Vista Paint Serpentine (0443) is the nearest stand-in, at a delta-E of 1.34. 5 other-brand colors land within delta-E 2 of this one - a well-populated part of the spectrum with several near-equivalents to choose from. This color reads consistently across most finishes, so the choice can come down to durability needs rather than how it changes the color.

It is lighter than 18 percent of the Sherwin-Williams range. This is a crowded part of the scale - 643 colors measure within a point of 12.5 - so most brands will have something close. Among grays it is one of the strongest: only 1 percent of them carry more colour. Sherwin-Williams lists it in the 6000 series, alongside 855 other colors.